A recent paper by Jinyun Tang and Bill Riley that analyzed how soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition is affected by temperature was highlighted in the October issue of Nature Climate Change. CO2 released from soil is one of the largest actively cycling components of the global carbon cycle and strongly affects predicted 21st century climate…
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Two EESA scientists, Charuleka Varadharajan and Carl Steefel, have been selected to receive Director’s Awards in 2020. In addition, a team that includes Peter Fiske and Carol Valladao of EESA, are being honored for playing an essential role in Berkeley Lab’s award of the $100M DOE Water-Energy Hub, NAWI. The Director’s Awards program recognizes…
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Susan Hubbard, the associate laboratory director for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Area at Berkeley Lab, was introduced into the National Academy of Engineering Class of 2020 on October 4. Dr. Hubbard is one of 87 members and 18 international members who were formally inducted into the 2020 class at a virtual ceremony during…
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Berkeley Lab’s experts contributed to developing seven technologies that were recognized with R&D100 awards this week. One R&D100 award, announced Wednesday by parent company WTWH Media LLC, is for a simulator co-developed by EESA researchers: Amanzi-ATS. For more than 50 years, the annual R&D 100 Awards have recognized 100 technologies of the past year deemed…
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The 2% of microbes on Earth that we can grow in the lab have led to groundbreaking discoveries, such as the vaccine for malaria, but can you imagine what the other 98% could give us? Sara Gushgari-Doyle’s approach to cultivating difficult-to-culture microorganisms tied her for second place in the Sept. 17 finals of Berkeley Lab’s…
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Barbara Bomfim, an EESA postdoctoral fellow, shared her experiences as an adventure racer and discussed breaking into the environmental sciences in Brazil with AGU’s Sharing Science Community. Learn more about Bomfim and her perspective on navigating the sciences as an early-career scientist here. Bomfim works on the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments-Tropics project, focusing on quantifying…
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Berkeley Lab is one of 14 organizations from around the world that have collectively been awarded $12.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch a new Biology Integration Institute (BII), called EMERGE and led by Ohio State University. The Institute aims to improve understanding of ecosystem-climate interactions, focusing on permafrost systems. Bill Riley…
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Record drought and heat have some farmers worried about where and when crops can be grown in the future, even in California where unprecedented microclimate diversity creates ideal growing conditions for many of the most popular items in America’s grocery stores. A third of the vegetables and two-thirds of fruits and nuts consumed by Americans…
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Last month, an international team of scientists, including Berkeley Lab’s William Riley and Qing Zhu, published an update on the global methane budget as part of the Global Carbon Project. They estimated annual global methane emissions at nearly 570 million tons for the 2008 to 2017 decade, which is 5% higher than emissions recorded for the early 2000s and the equivalent of 189 million more cars on the world’s roads.
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Scientists who work to address challenges ranging from vegetation productivity under increasing temperatures to the impact of future drought at continental scale need to rely on data that can connect the biology taking place on land with changes in atmospheric concentrations of water and trace gases like carbon dioxide. Climate and ecosystem modelers, soil microbiologists,…
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